Garments such as wedding dresses are desired to be available in various sizes corresponding to wearers' body sizes and shapes. Realistically, however, it is difficult to provide a sufficiently wide variety of sizes for various reasons, above all because of the costs.
Body shapes differ from one wearer to another, and the proportions of the waist and chest measurements also vary widely. It is therefore sometimes necessary in the case of a garment, in particular such as a wedding dress, which must be tightly fitted to the body, to adjust not only the size of the garment overall but also the size of each of various parts thereof.
Alterations could be made in accordance with the wearer's body shape, but in that case it takes time and effort, and also, because the garment needs to be sewn, it is more prone to damage.
Accordingly, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-217210 has proposed a “wedding dress made in a small number of sizes that can be worn with a good fit by wearers of sizes from 7 to 17”. In this disclosure, the wedding dress is divided into an upper dress part and a lower dress part. A slit is formed in the back of the upper dress part and the two side portions of the slit are drawn together and tightened up with a ribbon to adjust the slit width so that the upper dress part fits the body.